The Cascade

Disappointed that my speech was not delivered at convocation

“I am miffed. I am miffed because nobody read my speech at convocation this year. That’s right, I wrote a speech. But neither Mark Evered, the guest speakers, the student speakers, the goshdarned alumni, nor those honorary degree-getters followed up on their promises.”

I am miffed. I am miffed because nobody read my speech at convocation this year. That’s right, I wrote a speech. But neither Mark Evered, the guest speakers, the student speakers, the goshdarned alumni, nor those honorary degree-getters followed up on their promises.

I swear to you that everyone of them emailed me back to imply that they would love to read my speech, subtly suggesting that mine was much better than theirs. Mark Evered’s email even said “Thank you” at the end!

But I went to every convocation ceremony, and good old Mark read the same speech — very pointedly not mine — at every one. Do you know how painful it is to sit through five hours of other people’s speeches, day after day? My hemorrhoids are blown up like basketballs!

Anywho, since the speakers at this year’s convocations were liars, I thought I would publish my speech here:

“Dear Grads of 2016, I was walking outside the other day, just to get my weekly dose of fresh air, when I saw a rabbit on my lawn. Now, I know what you’re thinking: rabbits don’t just appear on lawns out of nowhere.

Normally you’d be correct. Rabbits do like to keep to more bushy areas so they can escape coyotes and stuff. But this rabbit was different. It was not afraid of me and our suburban chaos at all.

In fact, this rabbit was dead.

I know what you’re thinking: rabbits don’t just crawl up to people’s lawns to breathe their last breath! They usually just get eaten by predators or eat something poisonous.

Normally you’d be correct, and in fact you are correct. But this rabbit died a little differently. Its death was not the fault of its own place in the food chain at all.

In fact, its death was my fault. It was my pet rabbit, you see. I killed it the day before with my bare hands and I left it on my lawn because I wasn’t sure if you were allowed to put animals in the garbage.

What I’m trying to say, Grads of 2016, is that you did it. You killed the rabbit you were tired of taking care of. You grabbed it by the scruff of the neck, thought going through some adoption process would be too much of a hassle, and gave up the compassionate spark that makes us human so you could get your degrees. The path was long and difficult, but I just want you to know that I and the rest of this university are so incredibly proud of you for doing what had to be done.

Congrats, Grads of 2016! You did it!”

Whatever your reasons for not going with my speech — whether it be because you thought it was too short, or because I’ve never actually went to nor intend to attend university — I just want you to know, speakers, that I’m very disappointed and that next year I will not be attending convocation unless I get some answers.